Homesteading Luxuries
Homesteading is often associated with sweat, sore muscles and WORK. Although this is not inaccurate, there are certain aspects to homesteading that can only be considered luxurious. This post is devoted to examining five luxuries you can realize as a homesteader: consider it a small celebration, a break from breaking ground, watering plants and feeding the pigs! For those of you who are not homesteaders, this post will give you an idea of some of the perks of living the lifestyle. For those of you who ARE homesteaders, this article should provide a good reminder of some of the great things we receive in return for our hard work.
Awaken/Sleep according to your Natural Cycle
This is a big one for me : I think I would have a hell of a hard time giving it up. I think @walkerland would agree. As homesteaders, we set our own schedule, and for us, that means we sleep when we are tired, and we wake up when we wake up. We have no clocks in the house, and I tell ya: what a beautiful thing. The idea of waking up to a shrill alarm clock is very distasteful. Abhorrent, even! The odd time we need to set an alarm clock (usually to pick someone up at the airport), both of us hate it!
Working in Nature
When we go to work in the morning, we are greeted by the songs of six or eight species of birds. The wind rustles through our hair. The sun tans us. Two deliriously happy dogs are by our side. Occasionally we catch sight of a deer or moose. In comparison to an office job .. well .. there is no comparison. Working in nature is a thousand times better. Not many people get to do this, in the modern age.
Ridiculous Food Quality
Fresh baked bread. Eggs that are hours old. Country wines that cannot be bought. The most delicious, healthy vegetables you can get. The list of culinary delights available to homesteaders are really only limited by knowledge and the willingness to work for it.
The idea of eating standard food again is offputting. GMO? Hormones in food? Pesticides? Not a chance.
Time to Live
Don't get me wrong on this one: there is a tonne of work to do on a homestead. That said, there is also abundant time to live a little. With no set schedule and no boss to wreck your day with the latest crisis, you can really live on a homestead. The mid-day siesta is very nice, as is the occasional afternoon drunk! Loud music (60-70-80's, of course) can be had at any time. A quick game of chess .. a chapter in a book, sitting in the breeze .. there is just no end to the amount of living you can sneak in!
Time for Others
We have found that we have time for others, much moreso than when we had careers. The phone calls can be longer, the on-line chats more extended .. and it's easy to say "Come stay for a week!" The downside to this is realizing just how little time an average person (with a job/career) actually has! All these friends we have all the time in the world for .. well, they can barely answer an email. Still, it is pretty nice to be able to offer our time to others, even if they are never in a position to take us up on it.
Opportunity for Introspection
For the other six or eight people on the planet who are introspective in nature, homesteading provides plenty of time (and a great environment) for introspection and self-reflection. For those of you who need to do a bit of personal work, homesteading will give you that chance. The solitude of working alone is very conducive to self improvement work, as is the work environment on a homestead. My partner in crime, @walkerland, has made great strides in this area and has written about it. Personally, my time on this homestead has given me the opportunity to reflect on my life, my actions (good and bad), the people in my life, friends, family .. I've been able to internally resolve a lot of the conflict I felt over these things, understand it all from a considered perspective. A big part of the reason for that is the homesteading environment, and adequate time to do it.
There you are: some of the high end perks associated with homesteading! If you're considering homesteading, I hope I've pushed you over the edge! And if you are a homesteader, I hope I've reminded you of some of what makes it so great. I'm sure I'm missing a tonne of good things: let me know in the comments! Hope you enjoyed the article.
Take care, be well, and good luck!
[ @xwalkran ]
Seeking truth, meaning and enlightenment.
Philosophy, Technology, News, Conspiracy, Homesteading, Fiction, $$ and more.
Check out my news/conspiracy aggregation site @ http://walkran.com
Thanks for the great post and showing people the bright side of being free(er)! Although not part of a full-fledged homestead, I myself enjoy many of the benefits including many fresh fruits and wines, and can definitely agree that nothing compares to home-grown anything!
I would like to define the philosophy behind Homesteading:
Homesteading is the art of producing value (not necessarily monetary) to a level which ensures self (and community) sufficiency.
I would challenge anyone, if you are not doing so already, to start to produce at least 1 thing for yourself that you use on a day to day basis. You can begin to do this regardless of where you live. Some great ideas to get started on are;
Etc... start with something fun to you! Once you start to produce more than you need start gifting and trading to add value to your community. Don't forget you can be an urban homesteader as well!
One thing we have done is remove all unnecessary expenses from our lives as to reduce the amount of currency required to sustain our day-to-day lives, in turn requiring less time focused on earning money and leaving us more time to add value to our personal lives and community.
Great comment, a valuable contribution to the discussion. It all starts with little steps, and any of these things are a good step forward. Upon doing one or two of these, I suspect many people would start to experience some of the freedom associated with homesteading, and disintermediation.
I tried tobacco one time.. did not go well! There is a fair bit of knowledge to doing that properly, from what I gather.
I've done tobacco twice now. I haven't found it to be over challenging on the growing end. Drying and curing can be a challenge if you don't have a flue or a curing box. This last run I did a slow dry (about 10-14 days) in a high humidity (80-90%) situation. Worked great!
Excellent post!
For many years I had a wall hanging that said :Get up When You Like and I would look at it and wonder if I ever could. But I've been doing just that for the last 20 years and it's a grand thing! Of course, these days, that time seems to be 4AM....
Today is our anniversary, but I am way behind on planting, so I've been in the garden all morning and had planned to be there until suppertime. But it's gotten too hot for me so the plan has changed. Once I'm done fooling around on the 'puter, I'm going to go read.
Then I'll shower and we're going out for supper.
All because, I can!
Happy anniversary! Sounds like you have the perfect day planned. ♥
I hear you on the 4am thing. Although we are more like 7:00am, it's still earlier than one would expect .. and getting earlier, as we age. Odd, but from what I gather, totally normal.
Happy anniversary, and enjoy dinner!
Reading this post had me sighing with every sentence.
No alarms... privacy... healthy choices... ahhhh
Yes you and @walkerland are living the life so many wish they (myself included) could.
Blessings to both of you!!
And to you, and yours.
Congratulations @xwalkran! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
To support your work, I also upvoted your post!
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP